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Saturday, January 21, 2006

First there was Brokeback Mountain, then there was The End of the Spear. The latter has precipitated a debate within the Evangelical community, with different Christians taking different sides.

We could approach the issue by posing a series of escalating questions:

Should a moviemaker cast an unbeliever in the role of a believer? Should a Christian moviemaker cast an unbeliever in the role of a believer?

Should a moviemaker cast a homosexual in the role of a believer? Should a Christian moviemaker cast a homosexual in the role of a believer?

Should a moviemaker cast a homosexual activist in the role of a believer? Should a Christian moviemaker cast a homosexual activist in the role of a believer?

Should a moviemaker cast a homosexual activist in the role of a believer at a time when the liberal establishment is working overtime to mainstream sodomy?

Should a Christian moviemaker cast a homosexual activist in the role of a believer at a time when the liberal establishment is working overtime to mainstream sodomy?

On a related note, Alan Kurschner has attacked the film on the grounds that sodomy is an especially heinous sin. It would be possible to agree with Kurschner on the moral status of sodomy, yet deny that this is reason enough to attack the movie. However, some have also challenged Alan’s operating premise.

These are all important questions. It’s possible to answer all in the affirmation, all in the negative, or to draw the line as we move up the scale.

II. Homosexuality in Rom 1

For purposes of this post I’m only going to consider one answer to one question: Is Alan right to single out sodomy as an especially heinous sin?

The locus classicus is Rom 1, where St. Paul does, in fact, single out sodomy to illustrate a more general point. With all the sins to choose from, why does Paul seize on this sin in particular? There are two interrelated reasons:

i) Paul is laying the groundwork to establish the universality of sin as well as the culpability of sin.

Although it’s controversial in some Christian venues to say so, Paul is moving within a tradition of natural theology.

In the Mosaic Law, both sodomy and blasphemy were capital offenses, but blasphemy was a religious offense.

There is, of course, a sense in which every sin is religious in nature, but every sin is not known to be religious in nature.

For purposes of Paul’s argument, he singles out sodomy, in part, because it represents a transgression of natural law—unlike blasphemy, false prophecy, or Sabbath-breaking.

ii) But another reason is that Paul regards sodomy as the natural law equivalent of idolatry, and idolatry is the archetypal sin in Scripture.

So, on Scriptural grounds alone, I agree with Alan that sodomy is an especially heinous sin.

III. Homosexuality in society

Now I’d like to elaborate on that point. Common grace may restrain it to one degree or another, but sodomy is, at least in principle, uniquely disruptive of the social fabric. Carried to its logical outcome, it undermines the social bond as no other sin. Why is that?

Well, at the most elementary and elemental level, it strikes at the root of the social order, which is the pairing of men and women.

When you think about it, it’s remarkable just how much diversity is generated by this simple, binary division and reunion. An unrelated man and a woman become husband and wife, father and mother. From this issues the father/son and father/daughter relation, as well as the mother/son and mother daughter relation, as well as the brother/brother, brother/sister, and sister/sister relation.

This, in turn, gives rise to all of those social roles and relationships which have no direct basis in blood ties, but are modeled upon those natural relationships, as peers, superiors, and subordinates.

In particular, it also gives rise to same-sex friendship as well as romantic bonding between the sexes.

At this point I’d also like to comment on the role of touch in social bonding. Sight is our dominant sense when it comes to navigating the sensible world.

Sound is central to communication. The spoken word is mother to the written word. It is key to the accumulation and transmission of knowledge.

But touch is central to our emotional life and well-being. Perhaps the first example that springs to mind is the role of touch in sexual social bonding. And that is indispensable.

Yet equally indispensable is the role of touch in asexual social bonding. Consider the emotional need that children have for physical affection from their parents.

Moreover, this is not something we ever outgrow. Human beings have an emotional need for affection from members of the same sex as well as the opposite sex. And this includes displays of physical affection. It occurs between fathers and sons, between older and younger brothers, between older and younger sisters, as well as friends of the same gender.

Interestingly, it’s often in the most macho subcultures like the ballfield and the battlefield that men feel free to be openly affectionate to one another.

However, this is prized on an unspoken code code. If there were any hint that the display affection was sexual rather than asexual, it would trigger the very opposite reaction.

BTW, this is one reason why it’s fatal to unit cohesion to introduce homosexuals into the military.

While we’re on the subject, the introduction of women is fatal to unit cohesion as well, but for a different reason. At that point you have men fighting for the attention of the woman. They become rivals rather than comrades.

One thing that makes a movie like Brokeback Mountain so subversive is that it deliberately co-opts a cinematic genre which is classically associated with male camaraderie, and renders that natural male-bonding sexually suspect.

IV. Homosexuality in art

The antisocial effects of sodomy can be illustrated in Western art. As a painter, Da Vinci is sympathetic to women. He can paint beautiful women beautifully. And in a painting like the Madonna & Child with St. Anne, you can even say that he is able to paint he female models lovingly.

Yet you have only to compare his work to, say, Botticelli, Renoir, Vermeer, or Rembrandt, to see that something is missing. He can draw women without being drawn to women.

Where Renoir and Botticelli are concerned, you might say that they look at a woman the way a boyfriend looks at a girlfriend—with raw sensuality and sheer infatuation.

Botticelli is especially instructive. After his conversion under the fiery preaching of Savonarola, he gave up his classical allegories and turned to religious subjects. Yet it’s the same woman, the same unforgettable face that pops up in every painting, whether she depicts Venus, Flora, or the Madonna. Like Dante, Botticelli immortalized the love of his life in his art.

In the case of Vermeer and Rembrandt, you might say that they look at a woman the way a husband looks at his wife and the father of his children. The sensuous appeal remains—that lingering and longing look—but there is more: an emotional complexity and domesticity that comes of living with a woman in matrimony, for richer or poorer, better or worse.

Turn from this to Michelangelo. Not only does he not find women appealing, he finds them repellent. As time goes on, he’s incapable of even painting or sculpting a womanly woman. Instead there is a raging and insatiable appetite for the male physique.

A modern counterpart to Michelangelo is Gore Vidal, a man who, at least in his younger years, united a passion for men with a passionate loathing for his own mother.

It’s not coincidental that you find in this one man a vortex of sodomy, misogyny, and atheism. Sodomy, when ripened to its full and fatal flower, poisons every aspect of social life—both male and female, human and divine.

Ironically, the homosexual suffers from a desperate and unrequited emotional need for the sexual affection of a woman, and the asexual affection of a man.

What the homosexual does, instead, is to merge his natural need for asexual male affection, as well as his natural need for sexual female affection, into an unnatural lust for men. This leaves the homosexual man emotionally stultified in all respects, losing out on both the sexual and asexual affection they crave, but deprave.

The recent debate over Christology and sacramentology has metastasized into a buffet, dishing up a wide variety of international cuisine.

Just run down the combox over at http://veritasredux.com/?p=73#comments or http://watersblogged.blogspot.com/2006/01/of-chalcedon-keys-and-300-pound.html#comments.

Lest we forget, this all began when Paul McCain dusted off the old charges of “Nestorianism” against Reformed Christology and sacramentology. McCain is never one who gets beyond bumper stickers and political slogans.

Then his fellow Lutheran, Bob Waters, weighed in. In my opinion, Waters made a weak entry. However, he has since shown himself to be far more sophisticated than McCain.

After that, Al Kimmel made a cameo appearance with a brief, but incisive comparison and contrast between Catholic and Lutheran views on Christology and sacramentology.

In addition, the Palamite position has been presented by a couple of its informal representatives in the blogosphere, provoking an exchange between Bob Waters and his Greek Orthodox interlocutors.

At this juncture I’d say the following:

1.Who speaks for Lutheranism? Bob Waters’ description of the issues at stake sounds very different from Paul McCain’s.

2.Likewise, there are dueling experts over the Nestorian controversy.

3.This debate occurs at the intersection of three different linguistic traditions: Greek, Latin, and English, each with its own philosophical and theological jargon and history of usage.

4.The reason we have three competing theories of the real presence is that we have so many theories chasing so little Scripture. Where revelation is silent, finely-spun distinctions are sustained by appeal to one’s philosophy of choice.

At this point, Calvinism is something of a spectator. Break out the popcorn and enjoy the show.

When Al Kimmel began his thread on Christian assurance, using Triablogue as a foil, I was naturally waiting for the coin to drop.

It came as no surprise that Kimmel’s alternative would take a sacramental turn.

http://catholica.pontifications.net/?p=1338#comments

Before we get to that, let’s quote and comment on some other things he says along the way:

“The logic of faith in Calvin can be described in the following syllogisms:

Major Premise: Whoever believes in Christ is saved.Minor Premise: I believe in Christ.Conclusion: I am saved.”

Doesn’t this have a familiar ring to it? Sounds an awful lot like Jn 3:16, does it not?

Yet Kimmel is going to criticize this syllogism.

Here is one of many points where the Catholic and the Calvinist inhabit different worlds. For the Catholic, it’s as if Scripture doesn’t matter. It makes no difference if the logic of faith in Calvin parallels the logic of Jn 3:16.

For Kimmel, it doesn’t matter because it doesn’t solve the “problem” of assurance. And let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that he’s right. Suppose Jn 3:16 fails to close the gap.

But how does that disprove Calvin’s position?

What Kimmel is doing is to treat assurance as a problem, and then cast about for a solutin in the form of a problem-solving device. If Jn 3:16 doesn’t solve the problem, then, for Kimmel, that disproves the Reformed position.

And let us say that Jn 3:16 doesn’t’ solve the problem. How does that have any bearing on where the truth lies? Isn’t Jn 3:16 true?

The fact that it may or may not suffice as a problem-solving device in resolving the uncertainties of assurance does not mean that we are at liberty to brush it aside and move on to another hypothetical alternative.

After all, doesn’t Jn 3:16 say that whoever believes in Christ shall not perish, but have eternal life? Is it wrong for a Christian to invoke that verse if you ask him why he believes that he is heaven-bound?

Even if Jn 3:16 were insufficient to fully ground the assurance of salvation, it is still supplies a necessary condition. Even if there were more to the assurance of salvation than Jn 3:16, can there be any less?

Kimmel then goes on to say:

“Faith here works reflectively. It looks to Christ, but it also looks back upon the self and its act of faith.”

True, and how is this avoidable? How do I know I’m saved? Well, if Scripture says that Christians are saved, and I’m a Christian, than I know I’m saved if I know I’m a Christian; and if I don’t know I’m a Christian, then I don’t know I’m saved.

Is there really any way around this? And even if there were, should we be looking for a way around this?

Kimmel then says that the Lutheran view, inasofar as it remains indebted to traditional Catholicism, can avoid the reflexivity of the Reformed view, and by avoiding that, can also avoid the uncertainties which attach to a reflexive doctrine of assurance:

“The logic of faith in Luther can be described in the following syllogisms:

Major Premise: Christ told me, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”Minor Premise: Christ never lies but only tells the truth.Conclusion: I am baptized (i.e., I have new life in Christ).

Faith for Luther is nonreflective. Faith rests directly on Christ. It does not look away from the sacramental event; it hears the promises and believes or not…The object of faith is a divine promise spoken directly to the sinner by Christ, through the mediation of the Church.

For Luther, assurance is not the product of an act of self-reflection; assurance is identical to the act of believing. I do not need to know whether I truly believe. I do not need to know whether my faith is authentic or not. All I need to do is believe the promise; the promise is fulfilled in me in that very act. Believing does not necessarily mean knowing that I have faith.”

But there are several serious problems with this analysis, any one of which is enough to sink this alternative:

i) It does not avoid the reflexivity of assurance. For the subject must still reflect on the fact that he is saved because he has been baptized, and therefore enjoys the salvific warrant which baptism (supposedly) confers.

Kimmel has simply concealed the reflexivity of Lutheran assurance by the way he phrases the syllogism. But it’s a simply matter to recast the syllogism in a manner that parallels the Reformed syllogism.

Major premise: Whoever is baptized is saved.Minor premise: I am baptized.Conclusion: I am saved.

ii) Notice the bait-and-switch tactic as Kimmel leaps from direct faith in Christ to the promise of the sacramental event, mediated through the church. Is looking to the sacrament, or looking to the church which administers the sacrament, equivalent to direct faith in Christ? Obviously not. Kimmel has smuggled in one or two addition steps in the process of assurance, and each step is, itself, a theological construct.

iii) Vesting your assurance of salvation in the sacraments would only a compelling inference if the sacraments are, indeed, an efficacious means of grace such that whoever participates the means of grace is thereby instated in a state of grace.

Yet this can break down at many steps along the way. It assumes apostolic succession. It assumes that the priest has satisfied the preconditions for the valid administration of the sacraments. It assumes that the recipient has satisfied the preconditions for the valid administration of the sacraments. In Catholic theology, there are many possible impediments to the valid administration of the sacraments. And even if these do not obtain at the time, sacramental grace is still resistible. I can be in a state of grace on Sunday, and commit mortal sin on Monday.

Indeed, Kimmel goes on to say as much himself:

“The statement ‘Whoever believes in Christ is saved’ is always true, in all times and places; but the baptismal form of this gospel, ‘I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,’ is true only when spoken in the right circumstances. A sacrament requires its proper context. It must be performed at the right time and right place, in accordance with the sacramental mandate.”

And, further down, “The non-reflective believer, therefore, believes the gospel and receives the gift of justification, but without the certainty of perseverance.”

Kimmel then says: “But when the mandate is fulfilled, the sacramental word is there to be believed or disbelieved.”

Ah, yes, but that’s the rub—that implicit conditional. Even from his viewpoint, you have this rider attaching to the promise.

Moreover, “The non-reflective believer, therefore, believes the gospel and receives the gift of justification, but without the certainty of perseverance.”

Furthermore, Kimmel’s viewpoint takes many other things for granted: “The sacraments do not work impersonally but work precisely because they speak God’s promise.”

And, again, “What he needs are sacraments. Sacraments do not tell us what conditions we must fulfill to be saved; they simply give the salvation they promise—and that is the only assurance we need.”

Do the sacraments promise salvation to every recipient? Does Kimmel really believe this? Is every duly baptized Catholic and regular communicant heaven-bound? Aren’t there conditions we must fulfill in order to be saved?

BTW, I’m not trying to equate Kimmel’s view with Luther. But the similarities and dissimilarities share a common flaw.

Now, let’s go back to Jn 3:16. What’s wrong with the antinomian appeal to Jn 3:16? Is the verse itself inadequate? Or does the inadequacy lie elsewhere?

The antinomian appeal is deceptively simple. For the antinomian uses an antinomian translation key.

Here is how one very vociferous antinomian redefines the key terms:

***QUOTE***

1) Eternal life is a guaranteed absolutely free gift received immediately by the intermediate agency of a simple act of punctilliar faith in Jesus Christ alone for the purpose of receiving eternal life, apart from works of any kind; and at that simple moment of faith in Christ, he is eternally secure!

2) At the moment of faith the believer is regenerated

There is no such thing as a spurious faith in Christ alone that has for its purpose the reception of eternal life. The modifiers, such as "head" faith, "false" faith, "spurious" faith, "temporary" faith, etc., are the machinations of those who oppose the idea that eternal life is, in reality, an absolutely free gift. No such modifiers to faith exist in the Bible. The Bible knows nothing of any such thing as a “substandard” faith in Jesus Christ for eternal life (not even in the Epistle of James or parable of the sower!).

http://free-grace.blogspot.com/

***END-QUOTE***

So when an antinomian and Sandemanian like Antonio appeals to Jn 3:16 and other such verses, he is making some tacit substitutions. For Antonio, saving faith is a punctiliar event or one-time act of faith. If you ever exercise this ephemeral faith in Christ, you will be saved, even if you thereafter lapse into impenitent unbelief for the rest of your days.

For Antonio, saving faith is unregenerate faith. Regeneration is not the cause of faith; rather, faith is the cause of regeneration.

This is how Antonio quotes John out of context. John has a highly integrated soteriology. For John, the work of the Father, Son, and Spirit are coordinated.

Antonio dissevers saving faith from its moorings in the agency of the Holy Spirit, who engenders saving faith by renewing the elect. If you read Jn 3:16 in light of Johannine pneumatology, then Calvin’s implicit syllogism can, indeed, stand on its own two feet.

Secondly, I also believe that these “mortal men” didn’t know that the ancient Mayans even existed. Now what?

Ill tell you what, just like when you rambled for three posts about me without understanding what “quote mining” is, you fail to see what I was trying to say. So let me be more blunt, now that you agree with me about the ignorance of the authors of the Bible: Where does God come into all of this? If the Bible was inspired, why do these Biblical authors write in such an uninspired and ignorant way? Did God tell the authors “some” but they wrote “all”? Or did God tell them “all” while knowing that they werent aware of the Mayans? Or maybe did they simply make stuff up and wrote a book that wasnt inspired by any supernatual being?

And you totally missed the point of my science comparison. My point was that scientists dont presuppose the validity of a scientific theory before they evaluate it, but you do so with the statements in your Bible.

Ok folks. Don’t get too embarrassed now. This was just something posted in a comments section, nothing serious. So I suppose we can’t hold Kinney to a higher standard than the scholarship on the same level as, “Hey guys. Great post!” But it’s at least worth a quick response. Let’s look at it piece by piece:

So let me be more blunt, now that you agree with me about the ignorance of the authors of the Bible: Where does God come into all of this? If the Bible was inspired, why do these Biblical authors write in such an uninspired and ignorant way?

Wait a minute: where are we getting this from? Who said that God inspired the Biblical authors to write in an uninspired or ignorant way? Let’s do a quick review. You asked the question, “Ever consider that when it says, for example, ‘all the world,’ it says so because the Bible was written by mortal men who didnt [sic] know that the ancient Mayans even existed?” First, we must note that such a statement completely ignores the exegesis that had taken place. In other words, Gene Bridges and Paul Manata offered exegetical insight concerning the usage of the words “all” and “world” in certain passages. But Kinney comes along and, after completely ignoring the presentation, offers a quite lacking alternative. His statement is along the lines of “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Forget that ‘context’ stuff. Just throw it out the window. The important part is that there is an error! The Bible is in error!” Three things must be noted:

1. We don’t start out with our theology and then conclude whether or not the Bible is inspired based upon how well it matches up with our theology. Rather, we start with the presupposition that the Bible is infallibly inspired, and from that we derive our theology. So if, in fact, our theology does not match up with the Bible, we don’t throw out the Bible! We throw out the theology! Luckily for Gene Bridges and Paul Manata, their theology was exegetically based.

2. The whole Mayan allusion is based upon a humanistic assumption. That assumption is that God must offer salvation to all equally, and if the Mayans didn’t get to hear the gospel, then there is injustice on God’s part and error on the Bible’s part. But this is simply an unjustified presupposition on the part of Kinney, and he must prove his assertion.

3. Kinney’s assumptions continue to fill the computer screen. Apparently, he thinks that God must cause the Biblical authors to be omniscient (an attribute that is incommunicable to man, by the way) or else they cannot be truly inspired. But where has he justified such an assertion? Why do the authors need to know about the Mayans before they can pen the Word of God? Kinney’s assumption here based upon numbers 1) and 2) above. That is, he forces his assumptions concerning the nature of the gospel into the text, and then concludes that the text is uninspired and errant. But who made Kinney the standard for judging inspiration? Why must the Bible reflect Kinney’s assumptions in order for it to be inspired? Is Kinney God? Thankfully not!

Did God tell the authors “some” but they wrote “all”? Or did God tell them “all” while knowing that they werent aware of the Mayans? Or maybe did they simply make stuff up and wrote a book that wasnt inspired by any supernatual being?

[sarcasm]Alright, Kinney. You win. Yeah, it’s the last one.[/sarcasm]

Ok, how’s about we review what Gene and Paul said concerning these passages. There is absolutely no confusion regarding what God meant, what he had the Biblical authors pen, and what the Biblical authors meant. It’s called exegesis. We don’t start with assumptions and then eisegete them into the text. We let the text speak for itself. So, Kinney, where have you dealt with the exegesis of the relevant passages? Don’t make a mess of the text based upon your unjustified assumptions. Exegete the passage!

And you totally missed the point of my science comparison. My point was that scientists dont presuppose the validity of a scientific theory before they evaluate it, but you do so with the statements in your Bible.

First of all, the statement “scientists dont presuppose the validity of a scientific theory before they evaluate it” is simply naive. Second of all, the statement, “but you do so with the statements in your Bible” is simply false. Please show where this has been done, specifically in the posts by Gene Bridges or Paul Manata, or even mine here. Don’t just assert. Show it.

Friday, January 20, 2006

Battlestar Galactica seems to have generated a faithful following. You even find paeans to the show in such starchy environs as the National Review. This isn’t your father’s National Review!

I’m very selective about what TV shows I watch. Every TV show has a gimmick. After a while, the gimmick becomes predicable. I tend to drop out of a TV show long before the series sputters to an end.

Among SF shows I’ve sampled over the past several years are Codename, Earth: Final Conflict, Farscape, First Wave, The (new) Outer Limits, Prey, Red Dwarf, Roswell, Space: Above & Beyond, Stargate, The X-Files, and the many avatars of the Star Trek franchise.

One easy way to size up the potential of a new SF show is whether it has interesting and interesting-looking aliens. Codename, First Wave, and Stargate all had campy aliens. Those shows were doomed from the get-go.

Stargate has become bubblewrap for the SF channel’s Friday night slot. I bailed on that show long ago, with ne'er a backward glance.

Stargate illustrates the strengths and weakness of the SF genre. It gives the writer a pretext to explore the impossible. He isn’t bound by realism.

But, of course, our human experience is limited to just one world. Every fictitious world, however fantastic, is merely a veiled variant of our own.

It takes great powers of imagination to come up with a truly alien, and deeply textured vision of an alternative world. As such, SF raises an expectation which only the most gifted writers can rise to, and then, only for a time.

The X-Files was a quality product, a classic of its kind. But it’s a period piece. I can’t see that it will wear well over time.

Earth: Final Conflict, had a promising start, but quickly went south. The same could be said for Roswell.

Some SF fans regard Babylon 5 as the high water mark of the genre. I could never get hooked on it. Maybe I didn’t give it a chance. But the aliens were so dorky to the eye that I couldn’t bring myself to endure more than a few episodes. Maybe I’m missing something.

There were also some promising, but abortive shows like Firefly and Harsh Realm.

The Outer Limits had some fine episodes, but it was, naturally, episodic and uneven. I didn’t stay with the show to sort out the good from the bad.

The best of the lot were Red Dwarf and Farscape. Red Dwarf is a classic specimen of British satire: Monty Python in outer space. I didn’t stick it out to the bitter end, and judging by reviews, it went down hill.

Farscape was quite imaginative. I confess, though, that I tuned out after the screenwriters killed off my favorite character (Zhan).

For me, the SF genre suffers from an intractable tension. It’s at its best when it’s the most mind-bending.

But, by that same token, when it ceases to bear any resemblance to what I see out the window, it becomes completely extrinsic to life on earth. It’s not how I live, and it’s not how I’ll ever live—in this life or the next. The essentially vicarious dimension of the genre fires the imagination, but douses the heart.

And then we come to Battlestar Galactica. This is arguably the best of the current SF fare. It has, however, taken a fateful twist of late by trying to humanize the Cylons, making them sympathetic characters, and thereby according them equal rights, civil rights, and due process. Sound familiar?

Ultimately, there are no villains. Evil is relative.

The show also doesn’t quite know what to do with religion. It tries to make religion a component of the show—something that’s atypical of the SF genre. But, of course, Christianity is out of the question. So they come up with something Homeric for the humans, while the toasters are the mystics and seers. Like, sure.

Not surprisingly, the show also has a doctrine of cheap grace: remission without redemption or repentance.

Before we move on to another thread, let’s try to tie up a few loose ends.

This appears to be McCain’s “Dear drop dead letter”:

“I've recently been involved in "discussions" with a few Calvinists. The best way to describe them is to describe them as theological pit bulls. Thankfully they are not representative of many Calvinists I know and have known. There are Lutheran pit bulls as well, just waiting to pounce on any perceived error. Such pit bulls tend to be predominantly younger men, for whom immaturity in how they express themselves might be somewhat excusable, but there are older men seemingly egging them on, whom they look to for direction.”

Ah, yes the problem of men. There are two different ways of looking at this. There is the feminist strategy which views male aggressiveness as a dangerous social construct. All men are rapists at heart. That sort of thing.

The solution is to raise little boys the way we raise little girls. Don’t let them make snowmen. That’s sexist. Don’t let them throw snowballs. That’s violent. Don’t let them play sports. That’s injurious to the self-esteem of the losing team. Don’t let them use male pronouns. That’s patriarchal. Don’t tell students that 2+2=5 is the “wrong” answer. That’s hurtful to their self-esteem. Hand out “student of the month” awards to every kid in class.

Then there’s the traditional strategy in which you treat male aggressiveness as a natural, inbuilt masculine trait which needs to be properly channeled rather than suppressed. This included competitive sports and contact sports, as well as hunting.

Being the aging, male chauvinist pig that I am, I happened to prefer Dobson’s philosophy of child-rearing to Gloria Steinem’s.

But, to continue:

“ They have an odd way of talking theology. If you make a comment criticizing Calvinism, or Lutheranism, or anything that they hold dear, they will immediately pounce on you and attack you personally.”

Personal attacks. Hmm. You mean like his recent characterization of James White:

“Meanwhile self-appointed Internet Calvinist apologists, with degrees from stop-and-shop Internet seminaries, are hosting cruises on luxury liners to talk about ‘Pulpit Crimes’ ... preceded by a conference in Disney World where there is going to be a debate with Spong. I guess these guys' groupies eat this stuff up. It's a great way to get a free vacation, that's for sure, but...”

Speaking for myself, I have a simple rule: I treat respectable arguments with respect, while I treat disreputable arguments with disrespect.

Moving along:

“You will be accused of being illogical, or illiterate, or incoherent, or obtuse, and so forth.”

What’s wrong with accusing someone of being illogical or incoherent?In fact, McCain accuses the Westminster Divines of being incoherent. See his recent post on the subject.

So what is McCain’s position? Is he saying that there’s nothing wrong with being illogical, only wrong with saying someone's illogical when he is illogical?

Once again, I have a simple rule: it’s wrong to say someone is illogical if he’s not illogical, but it’s not wrong to say someone is illogical if he really is illogical.

And while we’re on the subject, there is a time and place to get personal. If your opponent is willfully misrepresenting your views, it is directly germane to the substance of the argument to point that out. This is not a personal insult. This is a matter of elementary honesty.

Does MCcain think that Christians are not accountable to one another for what they say? That truth-telling doesn’t matter? That it’s unchristian to point out to a fellow Christian that he is distorting the opposing position?

Once more, I have a simple rule: we should hold our Christian brothers to a higher standard, not a lower standard.

Continuing:

“If you do not meet their every post with an equal deluge of words, they seem to take it as a personal insult and then take great delight in tearing and devouring their adversaries, as they describe you.”

Not to mention:

“They seem not to appreciate the fact that blog posts do not have to go on for twenty paragraphs. They are obsessed over answering every comment, and every and any perceived slight.”

No, this is not an issue of word count. The problem is substituting intellectual theft for honest labor. When they claim to have proven their point without arguing their point.

They are at liberty to spend as much or as little time as they wish on any particular exchange. But if, like Mr. McCain, you bandy charges of heresy, and the other side presents a factual, reasoned rebuttal to your allegation, and your response is to disregard the rebuttal as if nothing was said by way of answer, and then repeat the original smear—indeed, claim to have make your case when you simply brush aside the counterargument, then that is unworthy of Christian conduct.

“Such theological pit bulls are truly a blight on the Christian Internet experience.”

Ah, yes, the bad old Christian Internet. To judge by Mr. McCain’s background and behavior, his problem is that he’s used to living within the cocoon of a self-validating religious subculture. Inside that sheltered environment, one can easily fall into the habit of caricaturing the other side. You can get away with cutting corners on the truth because you’re always addressing a sympathetic audience. No one’s going to call your hand because your listeners are a self-selected group of like-minded believers.

But when McCain leaves the gated community of Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood for the mean streets of the Christian Internet, he does, indeed, come in for a rude surprise. He discovers that he isn’t so SPECIAL anymore. He finds out, for the first time in his charmed existence, that there are real live Calvinists out there—not just the kind you find in history books. And not just Calvinists. There are real live atheists out there too. Welcome to the rough and tumble of the blackboard jungle, Mr. McCain.

And Mr. McCain suddenly learns what it feels like when he attempts to palm off his urban legends on a hostile audience. He encounters real resistance. He's challenged to document his claims and defend his allegations. Shock! Shock!

Yes, Mr. McCain, this is the world that Triablogue inhabits. This is the world that Dr. White inhabits. This is the world that Jason Engwer inhabits. This is the world that Dr. Dembski inhabits. In the Wild Wild West of the Internet, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

“Perhaps their greatest danger is that they like nothing more than to drag you down to their own level of rude discourse.”

I wonder if Mr. McCain is as disapproving of the very colorful language Luther uses on Catholics, Calvinists, Jews, and Anabaptists—the likes of which you’ll never find at Triablogue.

“They like to justify this behavior by appealing to "apologetics." But, in the end, they are really no more than pit bulls, mindlessly attacking.”

“Mindlessly attacking?”

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t recall that I, or Gene, or Evan, initiated this attack. We were merely responding to McCain’s offensive. And if you bother to read our replies, there is nothing “mindless” about them.

“I must say that I can't help but wonder how much time they spend writing their blog posts, feverishly responding to every comment, spending endless hours on discussion groups and e-mail lists. Is this how we are best able to use our time in service to Christ? I'm having my serious doubts.”

Was writing a four-volume critique of Tridentine theology the best way for Chemnitz to spend his leisure time?

Back when I was attending a Lutheran church, one of the major concerns of the denomination (WELS) was the low retention rate among the young. Kids were growing up in church, but as soon as many of them grew up, they never went back.

We live in a time when ever so many of our young men are lost to drugs, pornography, street gangs, and the like, yet Mr. McCain thinks it’s a terrible waste of time for young men to be debating Scripture and theology on discussion boards. Who’s the one with his priorities out of whack?

Thursday, January 19, 2006

After listening to one liberal senator after another try to bait Alito into questioning whether there’s a Constitution right to abortion, ” this material makes for illuminating commentary:

***QUOTE***

Pro-choice Criticisms of Roe

This is a work in progress. One key source of this info was Ed Whelan’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution. A John Cornyn press release was also a helpful resource.

Because legal arguments are often very nuanced, I am working to get links to the full texts of all the quoted materials so that readers can view these quotations in their full context. With some articles, this process is more difficult than with others. (All underlines are added by me.)

Laurence Tribe — Harvard Law School. Lawyer for Al Gore in 2000.

“One of the most curious things about Roe is that, behind its own verbal smokescreen, the substantive judgment on which it rests is nowhere to be found.”

“The Supreme Court, 1972 Term—Foreword: Toward a Model of Roles in the Due Process of Life and Law,” 87 Harvard Law Review 1, 7 (1973).

Ruth Bader Ginsburg — Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court

“Roe, I believe, would have been more acceptable as a judicial decision if it had not gone beyond a ruling on the extreme statute before the court. … Heavy-handed judicial intervention was difficult to justify and appears to have provoked, not resolved, conflict.”

North Carolina Law Review, 1985

Edward Lazarus — Former clerk to Harry Blackmun.

“As a matter of constitutional interpretation and judicial method, Roe borders on the indefensible. I say this as someone utterly committed to the right to choose, as someone who believes such a right has grounding elsewhere in the Constitution instead of where Roe placed it, and as someone who loved Roe’s author like a grandfather.” ….

“What, exactly, is the problem with Roe? The problem, I believe, is that it has little connection to the Constitutional right it purportedly interpreted. A constitutional right to privacy broad enough to include abortion has no meaningful foundation in constitutional text, history, or precedent - at least, it does not if those sources are fairly described and reasonably faithfully followed.”

John Hart Ely — Yale Law School, Harvard Law School, Stanford Law School

Roe “is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.” ….

“What is frightening about Roe is that this super-protected right is not inferable from the language of the Constitution, the framers’ thinking respecting the specific problem in issue, any general value derivable from the provisions they included, or the nation’s governmental structure. Nor is it explainable in terms of the unusual political impotence of the group judicially protected vis-à-vis the interest that legislatively prevailed over it.… At times the inferences the Court has drawn from the values the Constitution marks for special protection have been controversial, even shaky, but never before has its sense of an obligation to draw one been so obviously lacking.”

Roe “is a lousy opinion that disenfranchised millions of conservatives on an issue about which they care deeply.”

“Letting Go of Roe,” The Atlantic Monthly, Jan/Feb 2005.

Richard Cohen — Washington Post

“[T]he very basis of the Roe v. Wade decision — the one that grounds abortion rights in the Constitution — strikes many people now as faintly ridiculous. Whatever abortion may be, it cannot simply be a matter of privacy.” ….

“As a layman, it’s hard for me to raise profound constitutional objections to the decision. But it is not hard to say it confounds our common-sense understanding of what privacy is.

“If a Supreme Court ruling is going to affect so many people then it ought to rest on perfectly clear logic and up-to-date science. Roe , with its reliance on trimesters and viability, has a musty feel to it, and its argument about privacy raises more questions than it answers. ….

Roe “is a Supreme Court decision whose reasoning has not held up. It seems more fiat than argument.” ….

“Still, a bad decision is a bad decision. If the best we can say for it is that the end justifies the means, then we have not only lost the argument — but a bit of our soul as well.”

“Support Choice, Not Roe” Washington Post, October 19, 2005.

Alan Dershowitz — Harvard Law School

Roe v. Wade and Bush v. Gore “represent opposite sides of the same currency of judicial activism in areas more appropriately left to the political processes…. Judges have no special competence, qualifications, or mandate to decide between equally compelling moral claims (as in the abortion controversy)…. [C]lear governing constitutional principles … are not present in either case.”

Cass Sunstein — University of Chicago and a Democratic adviser on judicial nominations

“In the Court’s first confrontation with the abortion issue, it laid down a set of rules for legislatures to follow. The Court decided too many issues too quickly. The Court should have allowed the democratic processes of the states to adapt and to generate sensible solutions that might not occur to a set of judges.”

“What I think is that it just doesn’t have the stable status of Brown or Miranda because it’s been under internal and external assault pretty much from the beginning…. As a constitutional matter, I think Roe was way overreached. I wouldn’t vote to overturn it myself, but that’s because I think it’s good to preserve precedent in general, and the country has sufficiently relied on it that it should not be overruled.”

“In short, 30 years later, it seems increasingly clear that this pro-choice magazine was correct in 1973 when it criticized Roe on constitutional grounds. Its overturning would be the best thing that could happen to the federal judiciary, the pro-choice movement, and the moderate majority of the American people. ….

“Thirty years after Roe, the finest constitutional minds in the country still have not been able to produce a constitutional justification for striking down restrictions on early-term abortions that is substantially more convincing than Justice Harry Blackmun’s famously artless opinion itself. As a result, the pro-choice majority asks nominees to swear allegiance to the decision without being able to identify an intelligible principle to support it.”

“Worst Choice” The New Republic February 24, 2003

Michael Kinsley

“Against all odds (and, I’m afraid, against all logic), the basic holding of Roe v. Wade is secure in the Supreme Court. ….

“…a freedom of choice law would guarantee abortion rights the correct way, democratically, rather than by constitutional origami.”

“Although I am pro-choice, I was taught in law school, and still believe, that Roe v. Wade is a muddle of bad reasoning and an authentic example of judicial overreaching. I also believe it was a political disaster for liberals. Roe is what first politicized religious conservatives while cutting off a political process that was legalizing abortion state by state anyway.”

“The Right’s Kind of Activism,” Washington Post, November 14, 2004.

Kermit Roosevelt — University of Pennsylvania Law School

“[I]t is time to admit in public that, as an example of the practice of constitutional opinion writing, Roe is a serious disappointment. You will be hard-pressed to find a constitutional law professor, even among those who support the idea of constitutional protection for the right to choose, who will embrace the opinion itself rather than the result.

“This is not surprising. As constitutional argument, Roe is barely coherent. The court pulled its fundamental right to choose more or less from the constitutional ether. It supported that right via a lengthy, but purposeless, cross-cultural historical review of abortion restrictions and a tidy but irrelevant refutation of the straw-man argument that a fetus is a constitutional ‘person’ entited to the protection of the 14th Amendment. ….

“By declaring an inviolable fundamental right to abortion, Roe short-circuited the democratic deliberation that is the most reliable method of deciding questions of competing values.”

“The failure to confront the issue in principled terms leaves the opinion to read like a set of hospital rules and regulations…. Neither historian, nor layman, nor lawyer will be persuaded that all the prescriptions of Justice Blackmun are part of the Constitution”

The Role of the Supreme Court in American Government, pp. 113-114 (1976)

“Multivolipresence.” The philosophical argument for the Lutheran position is this:

1. God can be wherever he wills2. Christ is God3. Therefore, the human nature of Christ can be wherever Christ wills.

Forgetting for the moment that this is a philosophical position rather than an exegetical one, there is an obvious leap in this syllogism. First of all, the person of Christ is equated with the nature of Christ. For instance, Calvinists affirm that Christ can be really present without being physically present because we rightly recognize that the person of Christ is not the same thing as the human nature of Christ. On a philosophical level, the Calvinist position is very simple. It doesn’t require ambiguous definitions and the twisting of concepts, and yet choosing to in the end simply call it a “mystery.” Rather, we first affirm a Biblical view of the Incarnation, that Christ is one person with two distinct natures that remain unconfused, and then from that we must reject that the human nature, being that it is human, can be either illocal or omnipresent. The term Multivolipresence is a misleading one. This isn’t simply an issue of “Christ can be wherever he wills.” This is an issue of defining our terms correctly. When we say that Christ’s human nature is “human,” we mean that it is human. Bob Waters said:

Sure, he could have created a key- though there is no reason why He would have had to. He could have played “peek-a-boo.” He could have done all sorts of things. And He could have been illocally present throughout the universe. The troublesome question is why one would prefer some other explanation- any other explanation- to that last one. After all, He’s God. He can do whatever He wants with His human nature.

Noting in passing that this isn’t an issue of what one “wants” but of what the passage addresses, we remember that Steve rightly said, “As to whether God can do anything he wants with his human nature, that depends on what you mean. God has the power to change or remake human nature at will. But, of course, it would then cease to be human. So, yes, God could do it, but in so doing, you’ve radically redefined a key ingredient of the Incarnation.”

By definition, we must reject any communicatio idiomatum that attempts to redefine humanity. From an exegetical standpoint, however, is this a Christological error? Calvin stated, “For we affirm His divinity so joined and united with his humanity that each retains its distinctive nature unimpaired, and yet those two natures constitute one Christ.” This is in absolute in agreement with Chalcedon. This is not Nestorianism, we must emphatically state, because we affirm that “those two natures constitute one Christ.” But Lutheran theology has a problem with the fact that orthodox Christology rejects any communicatio idiomatum that attempts to take one more Monophysitistic step by divinizing the human nature. Our position, therefore, is based upon Christological orthodoxy, not Christological heresy. In fact, it must be noted that Chalcedon favored Nestorius over and against Eutyches on this matter. Harold O. J. Brown writes in Heresies: The Image of Christ in the Mirror of Heresy and Orthodoxy from the Apostles to the Present:

On [one] wing of the Christological front stood those who were so inspired by the concept of the deity of Christ that such sober and modest language [as the complete humanity of Christ] seemed to them to be totally inadequate and even irreverent. They had no appreciation for the nice theological distinctions such as that between theotokos and Christotokos; to reject the one and to insist on the other seemed to them to detract from the glory due the deity of Christ. . . . If contemporary liberal Christianity tends to revert to a kind of adoptionism, contemporary conservative Christians—including evangelicals and fundamentalists as well as traditionalist Roman Catholics—reveal a tendency to drift into a Eutychian or monophysite view, seeing in Christ only his deity and failing to take his humanity as seriously as the Bible and historic orthodoxy require. (Brown, 180-183 passim)

…The fundamental impulse of monophysitism is the insistence that the unity of the divine and the human in Christ is fulfilled in the physical life of Christ and produces a single nature. The theory states that the Word becomes flesh, but it works itself out in the human flesh becoming divine. Because they held that Christ’s humanity became divine, many, including Cyril and even Gregory of Nazianzus [both canonized doctors of the church], could be called Monophysites. (Brown, 184)

We can affirm a communicatio idiomatum as far as it is exegetically allowed. The Lutheran position is that a hypostatic union requires a communication of attributes to the extent that the union occurs at such a level that the divine attributes are transferred to the human nature of Christ. Anyone who disagrees is guilty of separating the two natures, and therefore, by their definition, denying a true hypostatic union. But what is the exegetical basis on which a hypostatic union necessitates a communicatio idiomatum to the extent that attributes such as omnipresence or illocality are attributed to the human nature of Christ? Where does Scripture enable us to positively explicate the nature of the hypostatic union? Scripture establishes a hypostatic union, but it tells us very little about the relationship between the two natures. So where does Scripture have us conclude that Christ’s divine nature is communicated to his human nature to the extent that the human nature ceases to be truly “human”?. The answer is “no where.” This is the difference between having a position that can be exegetically supported and having position that is derived from philosophical ambiguity.

Furthermore, the Lutheran position, in effect, appeals to exegetical silence when it will be of benefit. For instance, why isn’t the human nature completely omnipresent? Why not affirm some type of pantheism? The reason that would be given involves the extent of the communion between the natures. In other words, we would be told that the human nature is merely “illocal” rather than fully omnipresent (and, by the way, the Lutheran definition of omnipresence is not entirely Biblical to begin with, because it places it in terms of physicality and locality rather than in terms of knowledge, sight, and non-locality) because of the extent of the communion. But how do we know the extent of the communion? In one sense, Lutherans appeal to a philosophical position that exceeds the texts of Scripture (in which Calvinists appeal to exegetical silence), but then when the position is strung out to its logical conclusions, there is an appeal to exegetical silence! Obviously, this is an arbitrary philosophical position and not an exegetical one. Apparently, the “literal” reading of “this is my body” is “this is my body to the extent that it is physically illocal, yet physically present, yet not omnipresent, yet not bound by the bread, yet in the same spatial location as the Spirit, physically constrained unlike the Spirit, in space and time, yet out of space and time, wherever the Spirit is yet in a different mode of presence, in communion with the Spirit at the level of the natures but to an uncertain, limited sense.” Is this an exegetical conclusion?

Steve, I'm glad you are able to have a grown up discussion. For the record, please refer to our respective blog sites to read precisely who it was that introduced the concept of "Nanna-nanna boo-boo" into the discourse. As far as I'm concerned, the fact that you Calvinist pit bull bloggers prefer personalinvective and insult to reasoned discourse is reason enough to continue to disregard your blog sites as any source of serious discussion. But you do provide me much illustrative material for confirming what we Lutherans have been saying since the 16th century about classic Calvinist Christology. I've beendown the path of an attempt at reasoned discussion, but it always ended when you folks chose to start castigating on personal grounds and veer from issues to personalities.

Please, do not say this is reasoned discourse, when you misrepresent what has been written to you.

You see, Dr. McCain, I keep an archive of every comment I make and blog entry I write. It seems you have deleted a comment on your blog made at 12:33 am ET, as it is no longer there. Not only that, you have tweaked your original entry. Thus, it appears necessary to repeat myself.

Didn't he know he was merely beholding an apparition? That's how Hays explains the post-Resurrection appearance of Jesus. Since when did we believe Jesus was like Caspar the Friendly Ghost?

This is simply a lie, sir. One notices you have not bothered to link to the no less than 3 replies by Steve to you on this. That alone betrays a less than ethical standard of truth on your part.

He wrote:

You originally asked me, “1....how was it possible for the Risen Lord to suddenly "appear in the midst of them" among His disciples on Easter?”

One way of answering the question is to ask our frame of reference. There is, I believe, a deliberate narrative parallel between this aspect of the Easter appearances and OT theophanies/Christophanies.

“In contrast [to Hellenistic translation stories], the appearance stories did correspond to theanthropomorphic theophany stories of the OT—a genre that continued to flourish in Jewish literature—not only linguistically, but also structurally and substantively. This correspondence existed, although, or precisely because, such theophanies did not report about the appearance of the departed, but about God or his angel. For both, the representation began with the “coming” and “seeing” of a stranger in human form. The appearing One made known who he was through an introductory conversation. The key moment of the drama was usually a promise or a commissioning. The account then would close with the disappearance of the appearing One. These elements of structure for this story form were found in the epiphanies of Yahweh before Abraham at Mamre (Gen 18:1-33), in the burning bush before Moses, which concluded with a commissioning (Exod 3:2-10), and before Samuel (1 Sam 3:1-14).

The comparison with this OT/Jewish genre indicates that the appearance stories of the Gospels, both the individual and the group appearance types, manifested the structural indices of a specific genre, and have appropriated this form from the tradition of those theophany stories,” L. Goppelt, Theology of the New Testament (Eerdmans 1981), 1:242.

Since Goppelt is a modern German theologian, there are some liberal touches in the way he expresses himself, but the literary analysis is still ound, prescinding his low view of Scripture.

So assuming that OT theophanies/Christophanies supply the narrative standard of comparison, what we have here is on the order of a type/antitype relation.

Now, this is what Francis Pieper has to say about angelophanies (theophanies/Christophanies):

“The human bodies in which angels, incorporeal by nature, appeared on certainoccasions (cf. Gen 18-19) were therefore only assumed forms (unioaccidentalis), by which the invisible angels rendered themselves temporarilyvisible. The consumption of food (Gen 18:8 & Gen 19:3), by the way, wasreal eating…” (Christian Dogmatics, 1:500).

So, assuming that we agree with Pieper and Goppelt, it is possible for a human body to appear or disappear in the manner described in the Easter appearances. Yet, in the case of angelophanies (theophanies/Christophanies), this does not entail a divine incarnation or hypostatic union or a communication of attributes.

Hence, the phenomenon which you single out in the Easter appearances does not necessitate a communication of attributes. Yes, Christ is a theanthropic person. But theanthropinism is not a necessary precondition for the phenomenon to which you appeal. The disanalogy between Christ and a Christophany, while quite real, is quite irrelevant regarding the particular question at issue.

You had replied and asked for clarification on his use of the word "appariton".

Steve responded:

Yes, the humanity of Christ continued to be united to the divinity of Christ. On that we all agree. Again, though, that is not necessary to account for the phenomenon in question.

You argue from these post-Resurrection appearances to your definition of ubiquity. Steve then replied to this:

The Easter appearances tell us certain things about the nature of the glorified body. For example, the Lk 24 & Jn 20-21 go out of their way to establish the physicality of the Risen Lord.

However, with respect to the phenomenon of suddenly appearing and disappearing, which was your original question, to which I was responding, the Easter appearances do not differentiate between thenature of a glorified body and the nature of a theophanic body. Therefore, you cannot properly infer the communication of attributes from this particular phenomenon inasmuch as the phenomenon in question fails to implicate a communication of attributes.

--Where did Steve ever say that Christ's body was not a physical, living, glorified resurrected body and an "apparition?"

You also wrote:

Certain Calvinist bloggers are hard at work defending one of their own's silly suggestion that Jesus performed a miracle, created a key, then opened the door and that's how he appeared in the midst of them on that first Easter evening.

Uh-huh. This is another distortion of the truth on your part. This was not what was said.

Evan's point is expressed thusly:

But let’s not put things into the text that can’t be derived from the text. Jesus could have simply opened the door after performing a miracle that caused the door to be unlocked. Or he could have created a key. There are many possibilities.

He wrote that in the midst of a paragraph discussing the fact there are many "possibilities" to which we could appeal, but we disaffirm them because the text does not support them. His point is, and continues to be, that you are exceeding the biblical text, and such an assertion that Jesus made a key was possible, but it exceeds the text, so it is as absurd to reason from these appearances to your definition of ubiquity as it is for him to say Jesus made a key.

Dr. McCain, honest, reasoned debate does not involve distorting what others have said, and you claim to be an adult, so I can only conclude that you are not as obtuse as you appear. Does not God say that lying lips are an abomination and that He destroys those who speak falsehood? Neither does it involve deleting comments on your blog that you dislike. The fact that you continue to call folks "Certain Calvinist bloggers" without referring to them by name and then distorting what they have said while failing to link to it on your own blog speaks volumes. No, Dr. McCain, this isn't about personalities, but it is about integrity in reporting.

You cannot have a grown up discussion when you yourself persist in such childish behavior. If you really desired such a discussion, you would actually engage in it and you would not engage in this kind of behavior. Unlike you, Dr. McCain, we have done our best to avoid breaking the 9th Commandment. You complained that one of those Calvinist bloggers had said, "You lack virtue." One wonders why you found that offensive, when, on an ongoing basis, you 're the one distorting what others have written. You arent just any Lutheran, you represent Concordia publishing and you're a clergyman. I would expect better from you.

I'm concerned, the fact that you Calvinist pit bull bloggers prefer personal invective and insult to reasoned discourse is reason enough to continue to disregard your blog sites as any source of serious discussion.

For my part, I would like to thank you for doing Calvinism and Reformed bloggers a great service, for, if you are truly representative of your tradition, you have made ours look very good indeed. If personal invective is the standard for disregarding blogsites, then let it be known that our blog has not edited out your comments, nor have we distorted what you have written, and we have consistently asked you for an exegetical defense of your position, and you have consistently not responded. The Nanny-Nanny Boo-Boo terminology was not used without reason. Don't get offended when Calvinist bloggers respond to you in such terms when you distort what they write to you ad infinitum.

Oh, and thank you for confirming what Calvinists have been saying about Lutheran Christology since the 16 century, you're just a bunch of crypto-Monophysites. Now, Dr. McCain, does that make you feel better. All of us grown-ups can still call each other name on the playground. Nanny-nanny boo.

If I might jump in here, it might be well to explain a point which Calvinists often miss: ubiquitarianism is not, and never has been, a Lutheran dogma. Luther never insisted upon it, and the Confessions nowhere teach it.

But one reason why Pr. McCain has not been more responsive to your arguments is that you're missing his point. He hasn't been necessarily arguing for ubiquitarianism- which, like a number of other philosophical positions (consubstantiation comes to mind), Calvinists often mistakenly characterize as Lutheran doctrine. That's what happens when one imposes one's own questions upon somebody else's answers!

But ubiquitarianism is a side issue. For now, I'm going to assume, out of charity, that you were being facetious in your remark about the key. Obviously, in the absence of any mention of such a key in the text, the care with which John makes the point that the room was locked implicitly asserts that Christ's entry into the room was remarkable in view of that fact. A key wouldn't cut it. Rather than reflecting careful adherence to the historical-grammatical method, to go reaching for a naturalistic understanding of what the text describes would demonstrate an unwillingness to submit one's own, naturalistic dogmatic and philosophical presuppositions to the judgment of the text.

If one does, indeed, faithfully interpret the text, Christ's entry into the room must at least be seen, as I mentioned, as remarkable in view of the fact that the door was locked. In fact, I would go so far as to say that to substitute the word "miraculous" for "remarkable" would not do violence to the apparent intention of the text.

Now, the nature of the miracle is an interesting question. Could Jesus have made Himself invisible, been in the room all the time, and suddenly appeared to His disciples- a divine game of "peek-a-boo," as it were? Sure. He's God. He can do anything He wants with His human nature. Or yours or mine, for that matter. It would have been an easy thing for Him to have concealed His presence from them.

Could He have simply walked through the door, without being ubiquitous? Of course. He's God. He can do anything He wants with His human nature. He once walked on water, didn't He? Would walking through a door or a wall be that much harder?

Could He have created a key? Absolutely! He created the world! Why not a key?

You're right: there are all sorts of things which might have happened. But we are limited by the text's clear implication that whatever happened was remarkable, in view of the fact that the doors were locked.

So could He cause His own body and blood to be literally present in, with, and under the bread and wine every time the Sacrament is celebrated?

Of course. He's God. He can do anything He wants with His human nature.

Is it possible for His body and blood to be present in he Supper, but not physically? No- not because He can't do what He wants with His human nature, but because a non-physical presence of a body is an oxymoron. "Physical" is merely a synonym for "bodily," an adjectival equivalent of the very noun Jesus uses. And as we've seen, the Zwinglian position, which Calvin rightly rejected, has no possible basis- if it be conceded that Christ, being God, can do whatever He wants with His human nature.

Could Jesus be present everywhere in the created universe according to His human nature, if He chose to be? Sure. He's God. He can do anything with His human nature He wants.

Hmmm?

Would it cease to be fully human if He willed it to be omnipresent? Only if one is limited by the terms of a single completely human and far from universally accepted philosophical system that is in no sense endorsed by Scripture.

Would it the human and the divine thereby be conflated into a single nature? Not at all. Omnipresence could remain a proper attribute of the divine nature, while being communicated to His human nature not as its own proper attribute, but by means of the personal union. On the same basis, if He chose that I should be present simultaneously, though non-locally, throughout the universe, it would be so- and I would be no less human for it. Nor would it make the human nature of Jesus less than human if the person of Jesus, through the hypostatic union, were to access the perogatives of divinity with relation to a condition contrary to ordinary nature with regard to His human nature. What is true of His walking on water could be claimed, were one to assert it, of Ephesians 4:10.

What, precisely, does it mean that He "ascended above all the heavens, that He might fill all things?" Sure sounds like ubiquitarianism to me! But the Confessions, following Luther's example, stop short of insisting on that. Could we? Well, if one confesses the sola Scriptura and in principle rejects human philosophy as a source of doctrine, it's hard to miss the point that Ephesians 4:10 is a stronger scriptural argument for ubiquitarianism than can be adduced against it!

But we Lutherans, contrary to the conclusion to which Calvinists usually jump, just aren't interested in telling Jesus where He has to keep His human nature. And that's the point: He's God. He can do with His human nature whatever He wants. We, on the other hand, don't get to dictate to Him on this matter.

I believe it was Beza who sought the unity of the human and the divine natures of Jesus in their common name. Luther saw it in the Person of Jesus. If it's to be found elsewhere... well, if you're ever burned at the stake, it won't be for Eutychianism! In fact, if it is to be found elsewhere, there never was an actual Incarnation, and we are yet in our sins.

Key in his pocket, created key, walking through the door or the wall... macht nichts. The risen Christ is simply not limited by the puny presumption of human philosophy.

Which is rather the point at which dialog between Lutherans and Calvinists has always generally tended to break down. Calvinism, after all, is heavily indebted to Platonism, just as Catholicism is to Aristotelian scholasticism; a key part of Luther's theology, though, was the rejection of any human philosophical system as a means to arrive at authoritative knowledge of a Being Whose ways are not our ways, whose thoughts are not our thoughts, and Who is simply not obligated to respect our philosophical restrictions upon Him. In fact, we understand the supplimentation of Scripture by philosophical deduction to be, ipso facto, a denial of the sola Scriptura and a descent into crass rationalism. That's why we take umbrage at imposing an alien philosophical explanation upon the words, "This is my body," and "This is my blood." After all, Jesus is God. He can do anything with His human nature He wants.

But Calvinists and Catholics alike nevertheless insist on imposing an alien philosophical framework on Luther's thought. Ubiquitarianism arose less as a proposal of dogma than as a challenge to certain unsustainable assertions of Reformed dogma! If it is true that Christ's session at the right hand of God, for example, is to be understood literally and geographically, so as to preclude His bodily presence on the altar (as if God could not, after all, do whatever He wants with His own human nature), one is left with the task of explaining how one goes about getting to the geographical right of an omnipresent Being. And of course, the entire notion that heaven is a geographical location- a place itself is an assertion without much in either Scripture or logic to recommend it.

So why can't God keep His human nature anywhere He wants? Rather than "ubquitarianism," the Lutheran position is more accurately described as "multivolipresence." Christ's human nature is whereever He jolly well wants it to be. He's God. He gets to do whatever He wants to with His human nature. Or yours. Or mine. Or any other part of His creation. That's a point this Lutheran has always been amazed that Calvinists, of all people, have so much trouble with!

Parenthetically, though you haven't touched on this point, Lutherans don't teach "consubstantiation," either. We note that Christ says "this is My body," and that there is no objection to the literal understanding of those words which does not do violence to Scripture. We also note that in 1 Corinthians 11:27, Paul refers to the consecrated bread as bread. But we reject the notion that bread and body on one hand, and wine and blood on the other, are somehow combined to form a third thing. Rather, we suggest that the relationship between the earthly and the heavenly elements exist in the precisely the same relationship as exists between the human and the divine natures of Christ.

What christology results when the same analogy is drawn between the person of Christ and the Calvinistic understanding of the Sacrament, BTW?

But we're just not interested in defending philosophical positions. As much fun as it can be, philosophy simply can't trump the plain words of Scripture, or supplement it as a source of authority. And as the christological and sacramental trouble which Calvinistic Platonism lands the Reformed tradition demonstrates all too well, it can even put you in the awkward position of trying to invent contrived ways to shoehorn philosophically derived positions which contradict the plain sense of Scripture into a theology which means to affirm both the unique authority of Scripture and christological orthodoxy.

I disagree with Pr. McCain in that I think it unjust to accuse Calvinists of crass Nestorianism. Like Calvinists who accuse Lutherans of Eutychianism, Lutherans who take their criticism that far are overplaying their hands. I accept that Calvinists intend in good faith to conform to the historical definitons of christological orthodoxy. But while you guys may not be full-blown Nestorians, that doesn't mean that your christology passes Chalcedonian muster:

We also teach that we apprehend this one and only Christ-Son, Lord,only-begotten -- in two natures; and we do this without confusingthe two natures, without transmuting one nature into the other,without dividing them into two separate categories, without con-trasting them according to area or function. The distinctivenessof each nature is not nullified by the union. Instead, the"properties" of each nature are conserved and both natures concurin one "person" and in one reality (hypostasis). They are notdivided or cut into two persons, but are together the one andonly and only-begotten Word (Logos) of God, the Lord Jesus Christ.Thus have the prophets of old testified; thus the Lord JesusChrist himself taught us; thus the Symbol of Fathers (the NiceneCreed) has handed down to us.

You shouldn't be fishing for red herrings like ubiquitarianism. You should be trying to explain why- as intent upon christological orthodoxy as you are- you should have to go so far as to propose the separation of the human and the divine natures of Christ in order to defend the untenable philosophical conclusion that the verba of the Lord's Supper cannot be taken in their plain and natural sense, because a Man Who is Almighty God is philosophically precluded from doing with His own human nature what those words, taken in their natural and obvious sense, plainly propose.

Sure, he could have created a key- though there is no reason why He would have had to. He could have played "peek-a-boo." He could have done all sorts of things. And He could have been illocally present throughout the universe.

The troublesome question is why one would prefer some other explanation- any other explanation- to that last one. After all, He's God. He can do whatever He wants with His human nature.

So where is Christ's human nature? The same place that 300 pound gorilla sleeps.

Anywhere He wants

http://watersblogged.blogspot.com/

***END-QUOTE***

This is actually a great improvement over Bob's prior comments, and a great improvement over anything that Paul McCain has had to say.

It’s a serious reply that merits a serious response.

I agree with Waters that Jn 20 implies a miracle of some sort.

As to whether God can do anything he wants with his human nature, that depends on what you mean. God has the power to change or remake human nature at will. But, of course, it would then cease to be human. So, yes, God could do it, but in so doing, you’ve radically redefined a key ingredient of the Incarnation.

“Is it possible for His body and blood to be present in he Supper, but not physically? No- not because He can't do what He wants with His human nature, but because a non-physical presence of a body is an oxymoron. ‘Physical’ is merely a synonym for ‘bodily,’ an adjectival equivalent of the very noun Jesus uses.”

I don’t disagree with anything Waters says here. However, when Gene says that Christ is “present” to the faith of believers,” I assume he means “present” in the figurative sense in which we speak of an idea as “present” before the mind of a thinker. It’s not literally present, in the sense of occupying a certain volume of space. But we use spatial metaphors to denote nonspatial relations.

“Would it cease to be fully human if He willed it to be omnipresent? Only if one is limited by the terms of a single completely human and far from universally accepted philosophical system that is in no sense endorsed by Scripture.”

No, I disagree. We have a common sense notion of what a human body is, and when we read the Bible, the Bible talks about bodies in a way that corresponds with our common sense notion of what a body is. This is not a philosophical concept, but a prereflective concept which receives confirmation from Scripture itself.

“Would it the human and the divine thereby be conflated into a single nature? Not at all. Omnipresence could remain a proper attribute of the divine nature, while being communicated to His human nature not as its own proper attribute, but by means of the personal union. On the same basis, if He chose that I should be present simultaneously, though non-locally, throughout the universe, it would be so- and I would be no less human for it. Nor would it make the human nature of Jesus less than human if the person of Jesus, through the hypostatic union, were to access the perogatives of divinity with relation to a condition contrary to ordinary nature with regard to His human nature. What is true of His walking on water could be claimed, were one to assert it, of Ephesians 4:10.”

i)” present simultaneously, though non-locally, throughout the universe.”

Sounds pretty philosophical to me. Also sounds pretty incoherent.

ii) For me, matter is extended in space, while spirit is nonspatial. These occupy different domains. God is spirit. That’s the divine nature.

As I said before in reply to McCain, the true relation is analogous to the mind/body relation.

iii) A communication of attributes at what level? If you’re talking about a transfer of divine attributes to the human nature, then that’s pantheistic. If you’re saying that the person of Christ has access to and exercises attributes proper to both the divine and human natures, yes.

iv) As far as Eph 4:10 is concerned, I agree with the interpretation offered by the standard commentators, viz. Bruce, Hoehner, Lincoln, O’Brien.

v) Walking on water is a nature miracle which tells us something about the omnipotence of Christ, but nothing about the composition of his body or the composition of H2O.

“But we Lutherans, contrary to the conclusion to which Calvinists usually jump, just aren't interested in telling Jesus where He has to keep His human nature. And that's the point: He's God. He can do with His human nature whatever He wants. We, on the other hand, don't get to dictate to Him on this matter.”

That may be your point. It doesn’t seem to be McCain’s point.

“Which is rather the point at which dialog between Lutherans and Calvinists has always generally tended to break down. Calvinism, after all, is heavily indebted to Platonism, just as Catholicism is to Aristotelian scholasticism; a key part of Luther's theology, though, was the rejection of any human philosophical system as a means to arrive at authoritative knowledge of a Being Whose ways are not our ways, whose thoughts are not our thoughts, and Who is simply not obligated to respect our philosophical restrictions upon Him. In fact, we understand the supplimentation of Scripture by philosophical deduction to be, ipso facto, a denial of the sola Scriptura and a descent into crass rationalism. That's why we take umbrage at imposing an alien philosophical explanation upon the words, "This is my body," and "This is my blood." After all, Jesus is God. He can do anything with His human nature He wants.”

Spare us the canned etiology. That hasn’t figured in the arguments of Gene or Evan or myself.

“If it is true that Christ's session at the right hand of God, for example, is to be understood literally and geographically, so as to preclude His bodily presence on the altar (as if God could not, after all, do whatever He wants with His own human nature), one is left with the task of explaining how one goes about getting to the geographical right of an omnipresent Being. And of course, the entire notion that heaven is a geographical location- a place itself is an assertion without much in either Scripture or logic to recommend it.”

You’re covering too much ground in too little time.

i) If Christ rose bodily from the grave, and ascended body to into heaven (to be sure, he was taken up by the Shekinah, so it’s not like a rocket to the moon), then heaven is a place.

ii) This doesn’t mean that Christ is literally seated at the right hand of God the Father. The session of Christ is a metaphor for his royal dominion over the church and the world.

“So why can't God keep His human nature anywhere He wants? Rather than ‘ubquitarianism, the Lutheran position is more accurately described as ‘multivolipresence.’”

“Multivolipresence”? Sounds pretty philosophical to me, without being very coherent.

“Christ's human nature is whereever He jolly well wants it to be. He's God. He gets to do whatever He wants to with His human nature. Or yours. Or mine. Or any other part of His creation. That's a point this Lutheran has always been amazed that Calvinists, of all people, have so much trouble with!”

No, this is not an issue of what may or may not be abstractly possible. This, rather, is a question of exegetical theology rather than philosophical theology.

“But we're just not interested in defending philosophical positions. As much fun as it can be, philosophy simply can't trump the plain words of Scripture, or supplement it as a source of authority. And as the christological and sacramental trouble which Calvinistic Platonism lands the Reformed tradition demonstrates all too well, it can even put you in the awkward position of trying to invent contrived ways to shoehorn philosophically derived positions which contradict the plain sense of Scripture into a theology which means to affirm both the unique authority of Scripture and christological orthodoxy.”

This is a tendentious description of the opposing position.

“You shouldn't be fishing for red herrings like ubiquitarianism. You should be trying to explain why- as intent upon christological orthodoxy as you are- you should have to go so far as to propose the separation of the human and the divine natures of Christ in order to defend the untenable philosophical conclusion that the verba of the Lord's Supper cannot be taken in their plain and natural sense, because a Man Who is Almighty God is philosophically precluded from doing with His own human nature what those words, taken in their natural and obvious sense, plainly propose.”

i) To say that we “separate” the two natures of Christ operates with a tacitly materialistic notion of the hypostatic union, as if the divine and human natures must be in direct physical contact, like two pieces of paper stuck together. The Lutheran is getting carried way picture language—where two bodies share a common surface or something like that.

ii) Pardon me if I’m unable to see that “multivolipresence” or “present simultaneously, though non-locally” quite captures the “plain and natural sense” of 1 Cor 11:24-25. Run that one past me again.

However, I do want to thank Bob Waters for elevating the level of discourse. At least we’re now having a grown-up discussion.

There is a certain group of Calvinist bloggers, characterized by their love of personal insults and constant appeal to logic over Biblical theology, who have been hard at work defending one of their own's silly suggestion that Jesus performed a miracle, created a key, then opened the locked door, and that's how he appeared in the midst of them on that first Easter evening. Well, I admit, I thought that was pretty funny, but then...well, let's just say I now have to admit I'm wrong. Boar's Head Tavern has provided actual proof!

But then, I got to to thinking. If Jesus did a miracle to make a key, couldn't he just have done a miracle and parted the door, Moses-style, or called down fire from heaven, Elijah style? Why create a key? Why not just evaporate the door? I'm still wondering where the Calvinists thought Jesus was hanging out after the Resurrection. They tell me that what seemed to be his real human body and human nature, actually wasn't. So that whole "Thomas, stick your finger here" incident -- must have been some sort of trick, but Thomas sure believed it. He fell down in front of this very real human being, who was also the Son of God, and said, "My Lord, and my God." Woops, silly Thomas. Didn't Thomas know he was merely beholding an apparition?

What? An "apparition" ... yes, you read that right. That's now how this certain Calvinist blogging group is trying to explain the post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus. Now I just read one of them saying that the post-Resurrection appearances are the antitype to the OT Christophanies, of course not recognizing that with that argument he rather dramatically proves my point! The post-Resurrection appearances are the real deal, the real thing. God, in the flesh, appearing and being among us, in the flesh. Not magically, mystically or ... ghostly. But this whole "apparition" explanation does have a certain charm, doesn't it? It's a sort of "Jesus as Caspar the Friendly Ghost" theory. By the way, here are a whole bunch of other apparitions for them to consider.

All this sort of argumentation from these folks is because they can't get their brains around the Scriptural reality that there is a real communication of attributes between the divine and human natures in the Person of Christ. I prescribe a big heaping dose of "The Catalog of Testimonies" through which they will see that this reality has been part of the church's confession of Christ from the very earliest years. You may find this at www.bookofconcord.org

Oh, just one more thing, I've learned that in fact Caspar may not have been a ghost. Apparently, as the photo on the right illustrates, his grave has been discovered outside of London, England.

http://cyberbrethren.typepad.com/cyberbrethren/

Thursday, January 19, 2006

If you think He had a key, you need a razor

A while back, Pr. Paul McCain did a post on his blog suggesting that Calvinistic theology might do well to pay a little more attention to Jesus and the Gospel, rather than making God's sovereignty so much its bottom line. The result was a firestorm of failed wit and forced rejoiner in the Calvinistic blogosphere, in which our Reformed bretheren struggled in vain to find some allegedly parallel accusation to level at Lutherans in order make Pr. McCain's comments appear to be unfounded. The results ranged from the silly to the virtually incoherent, and pretty universally were lamer than the man the Lord healed at Bethesda.

But it's getting even funnier.

Calvinism's christology leans Nestorian. I'm not sure that I'd go quite as far as Pr. McCain, and actually accuse it of that heresy. It's not that Calvinists consciously deviate from christological orthodoxy; it's more that Calvinism falls into one of the same traps into which Roman Catholicism falls: granting a human philosophical system (Aristotelian scholasticism in Rome's case, and Platonism in Geneva's) what amounts to a veto power over what is and is not allowed to be true of God.

Calvinism asserts that if Christ's human nature is truly human, it must be locally confined to a specific geographical place. Given its Platonism, it must assert that; after all, in platonic thought things receive their definition from the characteristics they share with other members of a common class. It is a characteristic of God to be omnipresent, but a characteristic of human beings to be present in no more than one place at a time. Ergo, the divine nature of Christ may be omnipresent, but the human nature must be confined to one locality at a time.

Should God decree that I be in more than one place at a time, would I at that moment cease to be human? Calvinism's philosophical underpinnings require that it answer in the affirmative! Jesus, then, can and must be omnipresent according to His divine nature- but He cannot be in more than one place at a time according to His human nature, if it is to be truly human!

The result is practical Nestorianism. No Incarnation never actually takes place. God never actually becomes a human being; rather, He partially inhabits one. Christ's human nature is like a pair of pants: it contains part of Him, but not all. Christ may be present according to His divine nature where He is not present according to His human nature. Thus, the human and divine are effectively separated, Nestorian-style, wherever the divine nature is present, but the human nature is not. It is possible to speak of one existing in isolation from the other!

The human nature of Jesus, Calvinism asserts, is physically located at the right hand of God, and thus cannot be present in His body and blood at the altar. That this requires that heaven be a geographical location- just where is it on the star charts, anyway?- fazes Calvinists as little as the question of how it is possible to get literally and geographically to the right of a Being Who is omnipresent! For "the right hand of God" be a metaphor, and heaven other than a geographical place, would be for Calvinism's christological and sacramental theologies to simply collapse. But to sustain those theologies requires one to effectively adopt the heresy that it is possible not simply to distinguish, but to actually to separate the two natures of Christ!

Pr. McCain mentioned an incident in Scripture which pretty well puts paid to the Calvinist view of the relationship between the human and the divine in Christ anyway- and demolishes their argument against a bodily Real Presence. In John 20:19-28, the disciples are described as meeting behind locked doors, for fear of the Jews. But suddenly, Jesus is standing in their midst. The locked doors were unable to keep Him out!

So how did He get in? The care with which John establishes that the doors were locked leaves little doubt that His sudden presence in a room from which He had been excluded by a lock was miraculous. If one sheds one's bondage to unbiblical and purely human platonic presuppositions, and acknowledges that answer to the question of where a Man who is also Almighty God keeps His human nature is the same as the answer to the question of where the proverbial 300- pound gorilla sleeps- anywhere He wants- all objections to the Real Presence instantly collapse.

They can be maintained only by stubbornly adhering to the non sequitur that any real communication of attributes between the two natures of Christ- any real incarnation- would result in the human nature of Christ ceasing to be truly human. The classical Christological formulas of church history cry out against that conclusion as clearly as does the clear intention of John 2o:19-28!

But it seems that Pr. McCain's Calvinistic interloculators have a response to his question: He had a key!

What is wrong with saying that he had a key is pretty much what's wrong with the postings on theis board on Christology, Predestination, and a whole bunch of other issues: it's based on philosophical deduction, supported by eisogesis. And it's pretty lame.

John's stress upon the fact that the door was locked is suffient to establish that whatever way Jesus got into the room, it was remarkable in view of that fact. Comes of doing what this blog seems to have so much trouble doing: starting with Scripture and going from there to doctrine, rather than starting with doctrine and shoehorning it into Scripture by way of disingenous rationalization.

I'm still marveling at the assertions that "all" and "every" never mean "all" and "every," and that the fact that Jesus is recorded as reciting the Words of Institution as a narrative mean that He didn't really mean what the words say

# posted by Bob Waters : 1/19/2006 7:07 AM

No, but it would be a Christological error if you asserted that it was possible to separate the human from the divine nature of Jesus, whether in the Lord's Supper or elsewhere. And elsewhere on this blog, we find specific denials of Pastor McCain's charge that Calvinism is Nestorian.

I happen to think that assertion is a bit harsh, myself. But asking him to name your Christological error seems to be a bit much in a post labeld "Let's Be Honest."

# posted by Bob Waters : 1/19/2006 7:12 AM

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/01/lets-be-honest.html

***END-QUOTE***

Many conservatives were irate over the shabby treatment accorded judge Alito by the Democrats during his confirmation hearings.

That’s one way to react. But there’s another way of responding: gratitude. Oscar Wilde used to say that a man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies. In the case of Alito, his enemies did him a favor. With enemies like this, who needs friends?

While the Democrats had nothing but transparent demagoguery to offer, Alito responded with reason and evidence. Many liberal pundits agree that tactics of the Senate Democrats backfired.

Once upon a time, Lutherans knew how to make a reasoned case for their position. They knew how to answer argument with counterargument. Remember the magnificent, four-volume Examination of Trent by Chemnitz? Remember the mighty tomes by Quenstendt and Calovius? Even in our own time, John Warwick Montgomery set a standard of erudition in Christian apologetics.

Now compare this to Paul McCain and Bob Waters.

Both of them continue to claim that Evan May said Jesus had a key. If you bother to read what Evan originally wrote, that is not what he said. Rather, he accused McCain of mounting an argument from silence, and then, for the sake of argument, Evan tossed out a number of equally hypothetical suggestions—his explicit point being, not that Jesus had a key, but that as far as the argument from silence was concerned, this possibility was on an evidential par with McCain’s inference.

Apparently, that passed right over the head of McCain. So Evan had to do a second post in which he quoted his original words and pointed out, once again, what he actually said.

Yet despite putting this in ten-foot tall neon letters, McCain and Waters continue to impute to him a position which he never took.

It becomes hard to put a charitable construction on this behavior. Are they really that dense? To read Bob Waters, you have to wonder if he ever read Evan May’s post for himself. It looks like Waters is getting his information spoon-fed to him from Paul McCain. Is he illiterate?

The other interpretation is that they really do get the point, but they’d rather demagogue the issue. So either they’re obtuse or dishonest. I can’t think of a third interpretation. Maybe someone else can.

BTW, please don’t take this as a criticism. If I wanted to make my job as easy as possible, I couldn’t have chosen softer targets than these. Oscar Wilde was right.

Then you have McCain making the illogical claim that if the Easter appearances were antitypal to OT Christophanies, then this somehow proves “his” point that Jesus is God in the flesh.

Needless to say, there is no Calvinist who denies that Jesus is God Incarnate, whether before or after the Resurrection.

McCain and Waters never actually engage, much less, rebut the detailed arguments carefully marshaled by Gene and Evan and myself.

What they do, instead, is to characterize our arguments. They offer a tendentious characterization of our arguments. This is a sorry substitute for a reasoned, point-by-point counterargument. While Gene and Evan and I present arguments, they respond with adjectives.

Waters doesn’t know how to listen. Rather, he falls back on a prefabricated caricature of Calvinism which he presumably learned in seminary. It’s clear that he doesn’t read the primary sources of Calvinism. He has never seen the way a Reformed theologian actually does theology. Instead, this is all filtered through lens of Lutheran critics of Calvinism.

It’s like liberals who apply their preconceived, Marxist sociological theories to Muslim suicide-bombers. Never take a fresh, firsthand look at the facts on the ground. Just stick to your paper theory of how the world works.

Again, I don’t say this as a personal criticism. I can take off work a lot sooner when my opponents sound like a tape-recorder on continuous playback.

One final comment: both McCain and Waters talk about the hypostatic union as if it were stitched together like a patchwork quilt so that the human nature must be “wherever” the divine nature is—otherwise the hypostatic union comes apart at the seams as we “separate” the two natures, with one piece of fabric over “here,” and another piece over “there.”

If Waters and McCain wish to operate at this preschool level of reasoning, I’ll gladly leave them to their scissors and glue, color crayons and paper dolls.